Essential Elements of a Successful Kickoff

Previously, we focused on getting a team well started including inviting the right people, setting the stage, revealing disconnects, and converging on a way forward. In this post we're looking at what should be covered in a kickoff.

The Three P’s: Purpose, Process and People

Prior to a kickoff, your invitees will likely have been given some information on the context of the project. This information generally includes things like the business case, an approach or process and who is to be involved in the project. As each individual digests this information, they form their own mental models around purpose, process and people; and, despite our best efforts to give clear, unambiguous information, these individual interpretations often lead to very different mental models. If these different mental models aren’t addressed, the team may be off on the wrong foot.

Basically, everyone arrives at the kickoff with an understanding of the purpose, process, and people; but these understandings are all different! The goal of the kickoff is to shift from an entry condition where everyone has their own unique individual understanding to an exit condition where everyone shares an understanding of purpose, process, and people.

Imagine a Venn diagram showing the mental models held by the meeting participants on the purpose of the project. At the beginning of the kickoff the diagram might look something like this:

By the end of the kickoff we are aiming for something more like this:

To make the convergence to a shared understanding more complicated, all projects include unknowns that will need to be figured out along the way if we are to be successful. These unknowns span the continuum from the micro level details to the macro level including the project purpose itself.

At the time of the kickoff, we are as ignorant as we will ever be about these unknowns and how we will figure them out. Unknowns and solutions to these unknowns will emerge as we move along — even during the kickoff!

For example, the different mental models that your participants bring to the kickoff meeting might include some valuable nuggets of information that can improve the project. Be prepared for new insights and be open to refining or even redefining the project to make it better. The key when making a shift is to make sure you bring everyone along to a new shared understanding:

In some projects where new information is emerging frequently, these shifts can happen all the time in reaction to what has been learned.

Think of the kickoff as the initial stage in an ongoing journey of discovery. You will know that you have had an effective kickoff when the participants discover that they arrived with different ideas about the project's purpose, process and people and that, together, they generate new ideas and assimilate them into a shared understanding of the way forward as a team.